polar bearplunge. the event where swimmers go in a dip in fridged for fun. the water temperature a balmy 42. more top stories when "cnn sunday morning" continues. good morning, thanks for joining us. just about ten hours now until the super bowl. you know, i love football and i'm looking forward to the game tonight. this year i'm also going to be thinking harder about all those collisions as i watch them and how they affect the health of players now and potentially for years to come. the most pressing questions i see are about lasting damage from hard hits to the head. there is this new study out of ucla and it has relevance for all of us. it may have found a way for for the first time to look for tell tale damage in the brains of players who are still alive.

when he was a backup quarterback in the nfl, wain clark was lucky to call a play or throw a pass. in fact, he spent most of his time on the sidelines. >> so, i didn't take the contacts that other players did. >> except for one game, one concussion in 1972. >> i went down on a slump because i didn't know where i was and didn't know what was going on. >> he spent several blear hours confused. >> somewhere over new mexico or arizona i finally became aware of what was going on, again. >> clark's brain was rattled, but only happened once during his five-year career. >> the scans turn red and green and yellow. >> reporter: that is what makes this picture of clark's brain so interesting and perplexing. researchers at ucla says he has an abnormal protein in his brain. if it sounds familiar that's because it's been found in the brains of several former nfl

players. all had serious cognitive and emotional problems and eventually committed suicide and were diagnosed with cte or chronic traumatic encephlopathy. look over here. normal brain scan compared to two players in the study who had one concussion. you can immediately tell bright areas of yellow and bright areas of red. that's what researchers believe indicates the presence of it. memory problems, depression and anger. they're not looking just whether or not it's present, but whether it's present in parts of the brain that are responsible for those emotions. >> what we're looking at -- >> reporter: dr. gary small, the lead researcher, said he was supposed to find it in the brains of all five players in the study. until now it could only be seen by pathologists after death. >> what pathologists have been seeing in the brain are little

deposits. we could see the same pattern. >> reporter: small is cautiously optimistic that this brain scan will diagnose cte in living people. >> it's a small step forward, but a baby step. >> reporter: robert stern, a cte expert at the boston university school of medicine is a bit more skeptical. he says small's brain scan doesn't just measure tow, it measures another protein, which is present in alzheimer's disease. >> we don't know if what's lighting up is the tau protein. >> reporter: are they suffering from alzheimer's? >> i agree we need to do alzheimer's study to pin down our hypothesis is correct.

>> reporter: remember, researchers found tau in his brain, but he is a cogatively normal 65-year-old. whether it necessarily means an early death or other factors like genetics also play a role. still, clark says he's willing to keep up the brain scans until he dies to help figure it out. >> be able to find out what our conditions are now, address possible interventions earlier, so we don't have to wait until we're dead and autopsy our brains. >> i could tell you that players are much more concerned about head injuries than they were even just a few years ago. in fact, i want to take a moment to introduce you to lamar campbell. he took and gave out a lot of hard hits and he's now living with the consequences. lamar campbell has achieved what many young men only dream of. after four years starting for the university of wisconsin, he

made it to the pros. >> i got offered to come to detroit lion in 1988. i made the team and played with them for five years. >> reporter: injuries ended his career, but he successfully found a new life after the game. as a real estate broker. >> welcome back to life after the game. >> reporter: and radio talk show host on the voice america sports network. a platform he uses to educate other players about transitioning to life after football and the dangers of injuries you can't really see. repeated hits to the head. >> perception of what a concussion was was different. we didn't think you had a concussion until you were knocked out on the field and we looked at it as a badge of honor. >> reporter: he didn't know concussions could cause serious injury to the brain. now he says playing football takes years off a player's life. >> reporter: he also said he suffered some memory loss. >> situations where i don't remember certain series.

i will be out there and not realize exactly what was going on. >> reporter: while he was never diagnosed, looking back, campbell believes he had over ten concussions in his football career and he believes players today need to recognize the symptoms and be willing to let their brains heal. a year ago campbell considered donating his brain for research for cte. it's a degenerative brain disorder found in athletes with repetitive brain trauma and most recently linked to the suicides. >> i wrapped my brain around it for a long time. i think my decision was made, it was just the timing of when to tell my family with everything that was going on, it was such a hot topic and players committing suicide. one thing you didn't want to do was scare your family members. you didn't want them to think you were on the verge of doing something that drastic. >> reporter: just a few months

ago, he sent his paperwork to boston university. for him, it is all about the game. >> watching the super bowl today, i know that seeing those collisions they'll show them in slo-mo and make me shutter just a bit. coming up, making fictional medicine as realistic as we can. exclusive look behind the scenes of my new tnt show monday mornings. >> i saw his brain. there was nothing you could do. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! ♪ wow. [ buzz ] delicious, right? yeah. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... ♪ well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? bee happy. bee healthy.

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i've always been a fan of medical dramas. in some ways like holding up a mirror in a fun way to the work i do in the hospital. a thrill to get a call from a tv legend david e. kelly. "boston legal," "the practice"

"chicago hope" and tomorrow he rolls out a new one called "monday mornings." i'm excited now to give you a little preview. >> coming through. >> welcome to chelsea general. this is the emergency room and it's a trauma center. >> get out of my way. >> clear. >> multiple traumas at once. this is the sort of place where they all end up. multiple trauma and lots of action in this area. but you remember this dr. tyler wilson comes in with the team of doctors to make it all happen. that's what this hospital is all about. >> it's a single-level set, as you might imagine. ways we can make it multiple levels. for example elevator over here that goes straight through.

you go through that elevator and you're suddenly on a different floor. are these real? >> anything could be real. we're going to go to my favorite place at chelsea general, the operating room. this is an operating room that you're going to see where we could actually perform surgery. we wanted the entire room to be real. so, nothing in here is out of place. nothing doesn't belong. this is what a real operating room looks like. this is a microscope we use to perform surgery. be able to move this microscope all around and focus in on different parts of the head. if i had to do surgery because someone needed it on the set, i could do it right here in this room. but chelsea general is like every other hospital. sometimes complications occur. people are held accountable here

in room 311. >> all right, let's get started, shall we? >> this is the room that very few people know about. even fewer people get to see. it's room 311. our characters often sit in the same seats, for example, and they'll have villanueva usually a big presence in the back of the room. this is the place, really, that you never want to be. if you can avoid it. literally this walk where the doctors hear for the first time that they're the ones in the hot seat when they come to this podium over here. you see it's a glass podium. people can see their body language. the only person who sits in the same seat every time is dr. david hearting. he is the boss. he is the only person who can see, he can read everyone's expressions and that was critically important. the other goal of 311 was to make sure we learn from mistakes.

this is how medicine and science moves forward. the worst thing of all that a mistake occurs and no one learns from it. room 311 makes sure that doesn't happen. >> those meetings that we just saw, those are a real thing. many of the story lines on "monday mornings" are from my own experiences not only as a doctor, but as a journalist. >> and action. >> this is our writer's room, essentially. we brain storm a lot in here and just come up with ideas and i think we all sort of try ideas off each other and put them out there like trial balloons. >> i'll come up with a story and i'll be like, is that possible? we can do that, right? and then you'll talk me through a lot. i'll call, how do i do this? >> a story we did for cnn about this doctor, dr. chung who is down in texas, military doctor and they've been focusing on

trying to create a presence in really, really tough spots. war zones, areas that are difficult to get to. be here controlling a robot in the hospital or around the world, right? this news story inspired one of the episodes. >> don't hit the robot. >> had a 20-year-old medic who has never done anything like this before who is basically going to be talked through a major brain operation. >> you're going to need three packets of sutures, 10 blade and as many little clamps as you can find. >> even though it's scripted drama, you know, the auth authenticity and making sure the facts are right and really spending so much time on that stuff is that important. >> i joke with these guys a lot because i don't have any medical background, not a doctor but i research for ones on tv. >> and this research really matters. the cdc says about a third of tv viewers take action on health issues after hearing about them on primetime shows.

that's one reason the government makes their medical experts available to consult with hollywood studios, free of charge. >> we do that. we have actual medical technicians down on set. several medical meetings and prep. we clear everything through you and you see everything. >> was there anything else i could do? >> i think that we do the best we can to make sure it's as close to the real deal as we can be. >> you have the other two steps in there, too, that's perfect. and next weekend right here, you'll see my interview where doctors villanueva and huten as i know them. you will, too. "monday mornings" premieres this monday night at 10:00 p.m. eastern on tnt. a fun way, i think, to keep fresh food on the table. i'm going to be with rapper t.i. get this, we're going to be planting a winter garden. suddenly, she does something unexpected

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eating fresh vegetables and how great it is to grow it on your own. i do this with my own kids. we have our own garden. i'll be honest when the next guest reached out, i was surprised. he's a gardener but also a hip-hop star, his name is cliff harris, everyone calls him t.i., i got together with him and another singer. >> if you're a family who wants to cut down on your month bills and eat right and teach your kids about healthy eating so

they can grow up strong and healthy, you can plant your own garden, and that's what we're about to do. you can grow indoors, outdoors any time. if you're in northern states, you may want to consider an edible wall or nice planter like this. just make sure it gets a lot of sunlight. we have some lettuces, spices, baby collard greens and baby carrots. so lettuce gets a little bit bigger, so we want to plant maybe three in here. tip it over but hold onto the little plant and pull it out. all three you guys did as a family there. >> let's put arugula, the purple one down there. >> arugula. >> let's put that here. all right. do you want to do some carrots? >> yeah. >> carrots and lettuce, when you plant them together, they help each other because they give off different nutrients in the soil that help each other, so that's called companion planting. >> how do you know when these

things are ready to be picked. >> the lettuce, you can see, you can start picking it now. with the carrots, you want to wait a couple of months. should we put something in the edible wall? okay. cool. we've just demonstrated how easy it is to do this and how quick it is to do it. that's pretty amazing. you guys have a problem now. feed your pop. >> come on. >> i'll tell you, with that edible wall, you can grow fresh vegetables all year long and do it indoors. fresh food and vegetables are only part of the regimen for a new group of fit athletes. we brought the silk pacx-packs,s what we call them, to atlanta to start this journey on health. >> one, two, three -- >> six-pack! >> nice and easy. nice and easy. last time around. we'll jog as a group and we're going inside. >> how is it going?

>> how are you doing? >> as soon as you said those words to me, that you're on the team, i thought, oh, my, i'm doing a triathlon. >> my goal for today is not to kill you. ♪ >> pedal, pedal, pedal. i think we're ready to get started now. i want 30 push-ups. you have three more in you. as tri-athletes you can never slip. >> go ahead and hop in. good! >> i want to congratulate you all, number one, for making the decision to get fit. >> this is kind of a full circle moment for me, walking in to the arena, i'm about to cry. that's no joke. >> move those feet, move those feet. get a burn. butt down. work, work, work. rebound, rebound, rebound.

get up. get a little shoulder burn. same drill above your head. how about this workout. >> i think i started off a little too fast. >> we've got one zip right now. two-zip. ♪ >> you got this. you're the man. >> nice. >> it only gets easier. >> yeah! >> we're going to follow their progress all the way to september and the nautica malibu triathlon. they are going to finish this. get your own workout plan. join us, cnn.com/fitnation. top stories minutes away when cnn sunday morning continues.

up next, chasing life with two of the atlanta hawks. i was in the ambulance and i was told to call my next of kin. at 33 years old, i was having a heart attack. now i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i didn't know this could happen so young. take control, talk to your doctor. [heart beating] [heartbeat continues] [heartbeat, music playing louder] ♪ i'm feeling better since you know me... ♪ announcer: this song was created with heartbeats of children in need. find out how it can help frontline health workers bring hope to millions of children at everybeatmatters.org.

this past weekend, two atlanta hawks took time out to help lead a free one-hour yoga chas to children for choices, the center helping children. >> first pose, child's pose. >> she introduced beginner poses. i said before yoga can help you lose weight and also help you keep it off. it can speed up metabolism, digestion and help you sleep before. here is a big believer. >> i did yoga with michelle this

morning before practice and practice went well. >> how can you argue with that guy, he's 6'11"? i want to end the show with a sad update. we talk a lot about the health struggles of 9/11 first responders. i met these men when i did my special "terror in the dust." this week the fund paid out to 15 people, mostly firemen with lung problems from breathing toxic dust. i'm sad to say a new york firefighter died after a long struggle with lung disease. he died as he lived, valiantly and bravely, clinging to the hope he could get a second lung transport he desperately needed. he spent the last month in the hospital waiting in vein. marty's funeral was yesterday. his firefighter family showed up in full force. i only knew marty a short time. what's going to stay with me about is